14 February 1974

Government Settlement

Republic Of Nauru

Central Pacific

14 February 1974

Dear Mum & Dad,

As you can see I arrived home safely on Sunday night. Andy & the kids survived the week quite well although Darren was a bit of trouble & most upset that his daddy had gone to “stralia”. The first thing he said to me was “daddy buy Darren a tractor, yes?” I also bought some Chanel No. 5 perfume for Andy in Noumea which she was tickled pink with.

The trip on the train was uneventful. The young bloke who was in the same compartment was a railway fanatic & recited about every possible fact on trains & V.R. He seemed to know every bridge, signal etc. on the entire journey & kept a log of arrival & departure times at each station along the way. Crazy! We had a good flight yesterday, picked Pat up in Brisbane & at Honiara I saw Ron McGuire & the Treasury Chief Accountant, Ashley Hayes & his family joined the flight. They were returning from leave & had come up from New Zealand via Fiji.

Thursday, lost my biro. It certainly feels like we are leaving now. We have started to pack into crates that we acquired from people who left in December & ordered too many. We have ordered other crates from the Works Department (free of charge). The Chief Secretary knocked me back on my request to travel by air so I have now asked for the equivalent sea fares to be paid in cash so that we can make our own arrangements. As I will only be flying direct to Honiara & claiming sea fares to Australia, plus 8 days paid traveling time, that will subsidise Andy & the kids’ airfares.

No more news that comes to mind. I certainly hope you’re feeling a bit better now Dad & that everyone else is OK.

Love from all of us up here.

Greg

Greg